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HELL IMAGERY IN BLACK LITERATURE: A STUDY OF DIVIDED CONSCIOUSNESS
Abstract
The primary thesis of this dissertation is that Hell imagery in black American fiction works rather differently than it does in other American and English literature, that although black writers like white writers found in the tradition of Western fiction, particularly epic fiction, conventions for figuring and using images of Hell in representing the experiences of people, black writers, unlike white writers, found it necessary to alter radically these conventions in order to be true to the experience of black people. This dissertation then includes five interrelated essays of modern black literature which demonstrate revisions of the epic tradition, starting with LeRoi Jones' novel, The System of Dante's Hell. This novel establishes the foundation for analyzing subsequent novels by Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Ralph Ellison.
Subject Area
Modern literature|Literature
Recommended Citation
BRADFORD, ADNEE MARIE, "HELL IMAGERY IN BLACK LITERATURE: A STUDY OF DIVIDED CONSCIOUSNESS" (1980). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8018667.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8018667